A second set of views

I have been blogging since late 2011 about my pension experiment.  You can read the blog here, which details my trials and tribulations as I try to turn a decent return from the stock market and set myself up for retirement without shelling out management fees to fund managers. 

What I haven't written about is my other 'experiment', which is a bit closer to home.  I call it my 'hedge fund', although it is nothing of the sort because it's a simple buy / sell of shares that I personally like.  My 'like' is mainly driven by my knowledge of the market / company, and tends to be theme based - that is, I buy into a particular theme.  Given my line of work, a lot of the shares I have bought (five so far) have been technology shares - I feel I understand this industry better than most.  It will be interesting to see if I can maintain the rate of return I have achieved so far.

I hold as many of the shares as possible in my stocks and shares ISA, which save me any capital gains tax when I sell them.

So, what and when have I been buying (because in this case, timing is key because unlike my pension I do not have a 'hold until the end' policy) - and importantly for what unit price?

• Zipcar - ZIP - bought 6th August 2012 at a unit price of $7.20
• LinkedIn - LKND - bought 7th November 2012 at a unit price of $108.15 
• LinkedIn - LKND - bought again on 26th March 2013 at a unit price of $181.32
• Cupid - CUP - bought on 26th March 2013 at a unit price of 84.21p
• Imagination Technology Group - IMG - bought on 2nd May 2013 at a unit price of 330.38p

As you can see, this is a technology (in the widest sense of the word) heavy portfolio.  I am a big user of Zipcar and LinkedIn; we all use Imagination Technology Group chips (they are in the majority of phones); and online dating will never die.

Cupid and Imagination Technology Group were both bought on big share price drops - where the fundamental reason for buying hasn't changed, but for some reason the stock market has been offended.  Cupid has been accused by a documentary maker of running false profiles, whilst Imagination Technology Group is taking too long to close sales that the market believes should now be closed.

The piece of blue sky so far is the Zipcar stock.  I love Zipcar - I am not their busiest user, but I do like the convenience and it really plugs a hole for someone living in central London.  Zipcar was bought earlier this year by Avis at a decent premium to the price at which I bought in ($12.25), althought it sucked if you had been there at the market floatation price ($27.16). 

Like the pension blog, i'll keep the reader updated of what I am buying into and report the return each quarter.  So where are we today?  According to my initial calculations I am 22% up - not bad in less than 12 months